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Hi Julie, Jim is quite correct. The electric park brake is very useful. When you stop and put on the park brake on you have no worries when you start as the brake will switch itself off. I have been over the the very steep hills in the Lake District several times. Just keep you car battery charged. Have you got the Owner's manual? Regards, Peter.

May be time to get yourself a better code reader. Icarsoft will definitely tell you what’s wrong with your car.

For the small price of a new battery, is it worth it?

My strong advice would be to start with the small battery. When I had the problem of stop-start not working 18 months ago on my 2014 XF 2.2D 200, I left it for a while as I am not a fan of S/S anyway. However, at my last service I asked Marshall Peterborough to check the batteries. They informed me that the main battery needed to be changed to sort out the problem. However, when they wanted to charge me nearly £400 for this work, I took it to an independent garage in Milton Keynes who changed it for less than £250. However, afterwards the stop/start was still not working, so I did some research and replaced the small battery myself with the same part number as the Jaguar battery for less than £50. Stop/start immediately working again. Very frustrating as it meant the original main battery had been fine and hadn't needed changing. Very poor call by Marshall Peterborough, who otherwise had given good service. So, from this I strongly advise anyone with a non-functioning stop/start system to change the small battery first. It was pretty easy and rigging up a 9 volt battery with crocodile clips across the terminals during the swap over seemed to maintain my settings.

Hi Frank and welcome. The stop/start system will only stop the engine when the car is sure that there will be enough "left" in the battery to restart it. So it will not stop if you have the Air-con on full blast for example, or if battery is voltage is low or the engine is cold etc. Usual cause of s/s not working is low battery level. It is very common at the moment with the lockdowns we are all enduring. If it has been sat and just done short trips to the shops it could just need a good run. Personally I am a big fan of the Ctek trickle chargers to keep the battery topped off. It is also worth getting a simple cigarette lighter socket voltmeter to keep an eye on the voltage. Certainly in the x250s the battery is an AGM which has a different voltage profile to an ordinary wet cell but is capable of withstanding deep discharges. 12.8v at rest is pretty full 12.2v at rest is pretty low. It is worth noting that battery voltage may well show below 12v when starting but that is with all of the computers running rather than at rest. A quirk of these cars is the battery management is a bit too clever for its own good (IMHO). every six months it will actively discharge the battery to 75% and the voltage when running will be held around 12.2v. It does this so that it can work out how able it will be to restart the car. In my opinion that is fine unless..... it gets to 75% just before you park up in a pandemic and doesn't get a chance to recharge. Hence my advocacy of the Ctek chargers 🙂 Of course at 5 years old you may be due a new battery anyway 🙂 Kind regards John

Thanks so much for the replies everyone. I was concerned about connecting the black clip to the black terminal because the trickle charger handbook says it can cause a build up of gas and then explosion..! could someone show me a picture of the vent pipe so I know what I’m looking for? Really appreciate the help gentlemen, thank you x

hi as above just connect to the battery terminal just check the battery has a vent pipe fitted, as it should have and it goes out the back panel behind the bumper if you leaving it on charge you can get a build up of gas, in the boot, if no vent pipe is fitted cheers Joe

My dad has a Jaguar s type and he’s gone on holiday for a few weeks (staycation) so I wanted to put a trickle charger on his car battery. i have a universal Oxford trickle charger and when I finally found the battery in his car the instructions said to connect the red clip to the positive terminal and the black clip to the chassis, a bolt or car bodywork. I was nervous to do this to be honest so I thought I’d ask you all what is the best place in the boot to connect the negative clip? I’m a total novice if you can’t tell haha. Thank you

My total cost of upgrading to space saver spare wheel was £100 for wheel and tools from ebay and £70 for foam from the dealer. It gives a piece of mind and also useful when you want to rotate your wheels (to extend tyre life) on your drive way. I do that every 6k miles.

Hi All. As I have finally got my spare wheel issue sorted (at last), I would like to share a few points with you all regarding this, some of you may be aware of what I am about to say but please bear with me. I bought a 17" Libra wheel with a very good tyre for £99, the guy I bought from informed me that all sizes of XF wheels will fit into the well, including a 20" as the tyre profile on those could be 30 or 35, He had owned an XF previously and had bought 20" wheels for it so was speaking from experience, he also said that the 20" tyre was very hard riding, and the 17" was probably the most the most comfortable. I don't know what happens if there is a sub woofer in the wheel well and you want to have a full size wheel??????? Regarding the "jollop" to repair a puncture. There are some brands out there that if used the tyre cannot then be repaired, the only way is to buy a new tyre, seems an expensive exercise. Apparently Halfords sell one called SLIME, this being water based can be removed from the inside of the tyre and the tyre then repaired. Think about the worst case scenario.............You are on a motorway, get a puncture that cannot be repaired, no spare wheel and you have no breakdown cover. That's a big wedge.££££££ Many thanks to all of you who have advised on this issue. Rodney

Crazy these days having no spare wheel . If you had a blow out a can of " jollop" would be no good whatsoever plus a simple puncture that could be repaired would need a new tyre after putting a can of "jollop" in it . I feel much happier having a full size spare but a space saver would be better than nothing .

Hi that sounds good I had a space saver and replaced with the full size wheel, much better glad your sorted cheers Joe

Hi Joe Sorry about the delay with getting back to you but I had a few feelers out regarding the purchase of a spare wheel. I didn't really want a space saver wheel due to there being various issues with them. I found an excellent 17" Libra wheel (same as mine) with a Pirelli tyre on eBay for a "buy it now" price of £99, plus I was fortunate enough to only have to drive 60 miles to pick it up. If I find a wheel brace and jack all well and good, as it won't worry me too much If don't as my insurance covers me for breakdowns etc. so I can call them out. Many thanks for your help with this issue. Rodney

Hi What wheels does your car have I would say the cheapest option would be a used alloy off ebay, the space savers are ridiculously thin and there selling at over 100 pounds on eBay. You will get a alloy for a little bit more and a jack and wheel brace should be less than 50 pounds Cheers Joe

Hi All. Many thanks for the replies and information on this subject. I have since tried successfully putting one of my wheels into the spare wheel well as I do not have the sub woofer in there. I feel, probably like most XF owners the need for a spare wheel of sorts rather than use the "jollop", as I have been informed by a tyre dealer and also the Service Advisor at H. A. FOX Norwich that if this is used the puncture cannot be repaired and a new tyre will be required, so I guess I need to listen to the people who know. He also said that the larger wheels will fit into the wheel well due to the lower profile of the tyres, my profile is 55. I priced a new space saver wheel, jack and wheel brace from the main dealer £600:00......Jaguar rip off, or what? I'll look on eBay or somewhere for a spare of sorts, space saver or alloy. I'm sure the Styrofoam insert will probably have to go and something else put in it's place. Once again thanks for your input, I'll be in touch when I get this sorted. Rodney